Report: CG safety inspectors unqualified

Report: CG safety inspectors unqualified
By Philip Ewing - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday May 21, 2008 6:15:47 EDT

The Coast Guard’s maritime safety inspection program is staffed by unqualified personnel who don’t follow proper procedures and mismanage their backlog of thousands of unfinished investigations, according to an internal report by the inspector general of the Department Homeland Security.

The findings, which could have broad implications for the future of U.S. maritime oversight, were unveiled Tuesday before a House panel.

Among a sample of 22 safety investigators, 15 were not fully qualified under U.S. regulations and four were not qualified at all, the investigation found, although a senior Coast Guardsman defended the service’s 136 maritime investigators as a group.

Coast Guard inspectors did not give hundreds of maritime accidents, known as “casualties,” the formal inspections they warranted under official rules, the report says. And in 2006, when the backlog of old investigations got too cumbersome, the Coast Guard closed 3,848 cases it deemed “low risk” even though DHS inspectors found many were worthy of “high risk” treatment, according to the report.

Members of the House Transportation subcommittee on the Coast Guard and maritime transportation and the chairman of the full House Transportation Committee lambasted the Coast Guard about the findings of the investigation during the hearing. They said were especially upset because its findings were similar to previous reports from 10 years ago and as far back as 1981.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/05/coastguard_safety_rules_052008w/